


The Shadow At Your Side

by notyourfuckboy



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alfred is referred to by his last name, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Ivan's POV, M/M, Mafia AU, Minor but Deserved Grave Desecration, One-Sided Attraction, RusAme, Unhappy Ending, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 17:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17729678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourfuckboy/pseuds/notyourfuckboy
Summary: They pulled apart far too late to keep pretending that it always meant nothing. Jones panted slightly, eyes light and crystal blue in the morning sun, shining and searching for something in Ivan’s face that Ivan didn’t want to name.Ivan felt the words he never said creep up the back of his throat and sit on the edge of his tongue, still warm from Jones’ mouth. It felt for a moment like maybe he could say them, that maybe they could grab hands and run beyond the graves or further, straight into the rising sun.-- Mafia AU RusAme in which Ivan accompanies Alfred on a small and somber mission --





	The Shadow At Your Side

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a Mafia AU I have been writing with my friends. Ivan and Alfred both work for Arthur's syndicate, which is based out of New York. They refer to each other in the canon by their last names. Enjoy!

Ivan was just finishing a fifth when his phone buzzed, interrupting the tranquility of the early morning darkness with a brilliant shine of artificial light. Wincing, he pulled the screen towards him, frowning at the text. It was from Jones, unsurprisingly. ‘be out front. need a favor.’ No mention of purpose or time frame, no pixelated gif or cheeky goad as a means of greeting. The absence of those little details concerned him. This was not the usual favor.

He stood, setting the bottle on the office counter for someone else to deal with. He had never been able to figure out the recycling parameters anyway. Far too many bins.

He waited outside, breathing in the brisk air of the autumn morning as he leaned against a concrete parking pillar. It was still dark, but already the street lamps were flickering off, distant pinpricks of light extinguished before they had finished shining. He looked on without interest, his head far away. He’d been up all night with his longest friend and felt content, body and brain comfortably numb to higher thought or impractical worry. Plus, the vodka kept him warm.

 About ten minutes passed before Jones’ car pulled up, crunching over the gravel drive faster than the posted signs advised. Jones himself rolled down the passenger side window as his vehicle rolled to a sudden stop. He looked tired.

“Get in.”

It was more of a command than Ivan would have liked, but he complied, pulling open the passenger door. The car smelled like beer and grilled meat, a smell that never seemed to dissipate despite the green pine tree dangling from the rearview mirror. Ivan didn’t mind. The smell was starting to become familiar.

“Where are we going?” he asked, watching Jones flick a glance at his mirrors before peeling away from the building.   
  
“Just gotta go do something. You down for an adventure?” Jones glanced at him briefly, eyes furrowed behind his tinted glasses. Ivan raised an eyebrow, meeting his gaze. Jones quickly broke it, eyes back on the road. “Too bad if you aren’t, I’m taking you anyway.”   
  
Ivan laughed slightly at that, leaning his head back against the headrest. Not that he would’ve minded. Being in the car with Jones was something he had come to look forward to.

Of course, normally the American was all smiles and enthusiastic words, yelling over the music he blasted, posing ridiculous questions in between bites of food. Today was different. There was music playing but it was soft, like Jones had forgotten about it. Jones himself was silent, eyes focused ahead, jaw set. Ivan watched him through the wing mirror curiously, at a loss for a possible hypothesis for such out-of-character behavior. Maybe there had been a fight.

They drove out of downtown, flying across the bridge towards Brooklyn. Traffic was light, their only roadside company the slew of early commuters that mingled with the graveyard shifters blearily headed back towards their homes. Jones wove between them like a tailor with a needle, forgetting the existence of his turn symbol in his haste and focus to pull them further and further from the island.   
  
In time, the sun rose slowly on the horizon, illuminating building after building with a pale pink halo. Ivan watched entranced as the light climbed higher, until the rays peeked between skyscrapers and stone monuments. He’d always loved the sunrise in the states. Often he’d sacrifice the warmth of the balmy autumn evenings to sleep, preferring to be awake to watch the constellations fade into the hazy light. Usually, Jones was there to join him, half awake or half hard and not without some sort of quiet ridiculing comment about Ivan’s obsession with the sun. And he was right, it wasn’t as if there weren’t sunrises in Moscow. They just had never been as brilliant as the ones they shared together.

 

The silence stretched on as they drove, the hushed country of Jones’ stereo having faded into nothing against the whirr of the wind and the hum of his engine. Ivan watched as Jones’ knuckles gripped the steering wheel at a perfect 10 and 2. He wondered what he was thinking, or if he was thinking at all. Perhaps it was Ivan’s job to ask. Even if he did, Jones wouldn’t answer. Ivan let him drive, eyes back on the passing cityscape, observing nothing.   
  
They’d travelled nearly an hour before Jones slowed, turning off the highway. Ivan felt a sudden icy fear as their car rolled to a stop beside the wrought-iron perimeter fence of a hospital. Nothing good ever warranted a hospital visit this far from Manhattan. But then Jones swore slightly and made a hasty U-Turn. They continued onto a quiet suburban road. Ivan let his shoulders relax back against the heated leather.

 

It was mere minutes before Jones parked again, cutting the engine unceremoniously. Ivan looked up from his absent thoughts and blinked. They were surrounded by graves.

“This is just gonna take a second,” Jones said, voice husky. He didn’t meet Ivan’s gaze as he threw open the driver’s door and clambered out. “You don’t have to wait in the car. Or, do. I don’t care. Whatever you want.” The door slammed shut after him. 

As much as Ivan liked heated leather seats and sultry Bruce Springsteen, he was far more curious to know the reason for their visit. He climbed out after a moment, first letting Jones wander into the cluster of graves to their left. He sensed the other didn’t need him at his side.   
  
Ivan followed him several paces behind, glancing between the headstones for some indication of who’s resting place they were here to visit. Jones was normally so preoccupied with dates, always loudly and frequently reminding others of birthdays, holidays, personal deadlines and shipment schedules and even things Ivan wouldn’t consider worth remembering, like national days of specific foods. It was uncommon for him to not alert anyone of the significance of any given day. And there must have been a reason for their trip today, all the way across New York in the early morning to visit this specific cemetery. Ivan searched his memories of emails and flyers to recall if today was indeed Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day or Relative Passing Day, or perhaps Jones’ grandfather on his mother's’ side birthday. He drew an inconclusive blank.

Ahead of him, Jones stopped, pausing before a newer, pale headstone. It was shaped like a cross with two smaller slabs underneath, giving it a sturdy base. Ivan couldn’t read the name from his distance, but remained where he was, unwilling to encroach on something that Jones kept so close to the vest. If he wanted him closer, he could say it.

 

It was quiet, the heaviness in the air hanging above them like a somber dew. They were completely alone, Ivan realized after a moment. The last time he had been in a cemetery had been in St. Petersburg, for a funeral. He had felt claustrophobic then, caught between the cold granite of headstones and the colder stares of estranged family members. People had been everywhere, stepping on each other and crying and polluting the graveyard with noise. There, Ivan had never felt closer to death. And he had vowed to never return.  
  
This was different. It was silent and expansive, almost like they had left New York completely and travelled to another world. The sight of the graves calmed him, the rows of headstones inspiring in him not images of cold and decay, but of an otherworldly stillness. This was not a site that merely contained the dead. This was a resting place.

Ivan reached out, touching the smooth marble of a headstone before him. It belonged to Helen Elaine Randall. She had been 8 when she’d passed. There was an etching of a lamb under the words “God has called his Angel Home.” Ivan regarded it distantly. He wondered if he should say a prayer.

 

The thought was immediately banished as he heard the loud unzipping of the fly of Jones’ jeans. Ivan blinked, watching Jones’ posture shift, his legs spreading to the width of his shoulders. In a moment, Ivan watched him piss on the grave.

 

Jones unloaded himself fully, then zipped himself back up. He turned then, wry smile on his face as he jerked his head at Ivan.   
  
“Hey, c’mere. Favor time.” Ivan stepped forward, careful to navigate between the rows of headstones. Jones watched him, smile spreading into a grin as he drew closer. “You don’t have to piss on it but. Can you do something else for me?”   
  
Ivan broke his gaze to read the inscription on the stone:

 _Henry Douglass Jones_ _  
_ _1927-2014._ _  
_ _Father, Soldier, Friend._ __  
A Light That Will Shine On In Heaven.

 

“What do you–” he began to ask, turning back to Jones, but stopped as his mouth was caught in a kiss.

“Just fucking kiss me,” Jones murmured against his lips, instructing Ivan unnecessarily. “Just make it fucking count.”

Ivan closed his eyes, letting the American tug the end of his scarf and the cuff of his sleeve to bring their lips together again. They kissed deeply, tangled in each other in the ways they only knew when they were too drunk to worry about showing the other how much they needed it. It was one of the early morning kisses, the kisses they would share as the sun rose over the Manhattan horizon, the kisses that always seemed like forged memories when they returned to their routines, returned to their suits and their guns and the scrape of teeth against each others’ jaws.   
  
Not that Ivan didn’t mind the latter. But that hadn’t been what made him fall in love.

They pulled apart far too late to keep pretending that it always meant nothing. Jones panted slightly, eyes light and crystal blue in the morning sun, shining and searching for something in Ivan’s face that Ivan didn’t want to name. Ivan felt the words he never said creep up the back of his throat and sit on the edge of his tongue, still warm from Jones’ mouth. It felt for a moment like maybe he could say them, that maybe they could grab hands and run beyond the graves or further, straight into the rising sun.

 

But the moment, like all moments, was only ever just a moment.

 

Jones stepped back, boundaries in place, walls where the foundation had been lain. And Ivan mirrored him, fists curling in his pockets to keep them at his sides. Their world wasn’t built on moments. It was built on stone. And neither of them wanted to take the blame for crumbling it completely.

“Cool. Thanks. Sorry about that, but. Shit, that’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.” Jones smiled, turning to look at the grave one last time, one hand rubbing the back of his neck to hide the flush Ivan knew was there.

“Is no problem,” Ivan said breezily, willing his pounding heart to quiet down underneath his jacket. Jones scoffed a laugh, eyes narrowed back to their familiar cold blue. Ivan wanted to grab him by the chin and force those eyes to look at him, wanted that blue in all its silent hurt to see him and only him, to forget about the world and promise to never leave him alone in it.

But instead he simply smiled, glancing back at the name on the gravestone. He didn’t need to say anything else, or ask any questions. He’d hated his father too.

“Okay. Right, well, I’m fucking starving,” Jones said with a yawn and a stretch. “And traffic headed west is going to be utter garbage so I was thinking we could swing by Burger King on the way back. They’re out of beets, but maybe you’d be ok with a chicken sandwich?” He grinned, cocky all-American smile plastered across his face to convince himself and the world that everything was A-ok. Ivan rolled his eyes, narrowing them comically enough to make Jones laugh.

  
“Hm. I will have to make do,” he said with an exaggerated sigh, turning from the grave. “Perhaps if you play that new song you like again, I could survive some fast food.”   
  
“Now that’s a deal,” Jones said with a hearty slap to Ivan’s back. “Plus I found a bunch more new songs that are fire as hell but the lyrics are kind of shitty so, I’ll need your opinion on whether or not they make the hall of fame tapes.” He pushed past him, stride confident, and Ivan followed, content to listen to the American continue to shout his opinions to the sky.

 

The sun rose high above them, but it had turned cold. The magic and warmth of the dawn had vanished, and with it, any thoughts Ivan wished to entertain about what could have been.


End file.
